(approved October 27, 2009)

Auditions for University Theatre productions, including New Voices, are open to all University of Oregon students.  While our primary responsibility is to offer as wide a variety of opportunities for our theatre majors and minors, university students who are not majoring or minoring in Theatre Arts are not to be regarded as “outside” the normal casting pool for any production.

Actors from outside the university may be cast in roles requiring attributes or skills not found or expected in the normal pool, especially actors of particular age, ethnicity, or special ability.  For any University Theatre production, casting outside the university student pool should be limited to filling a maximum of three supporting/secondary roles.

Casts fewer than ten should not cast from outside our university student pool without faculty discussion prior to casting based on exceptional need. With such faculty permission, directors of productions with ten roles or fewer may cast only one role from outside the normal student pool. Directors of casts over ten but less than twenty may cast one or two from outside the student pool.  Casts over twenty may cast to the maximum cap of three outside the student pool.   In every case, directors should look ahead when proposing play titles and be able to guess where there may be need to cast outside the university student pool – and if needs only come clear through the process of auditioning, directors should bring their wishes to the full faculty for discussion and approval or compromise.

On special occasion, and with prior consent from the faculty in selecting the season, we may hire a professional actor to take a leading role, as guest artist and in conjunction with other educational access for our students. Theatre Arts faculty or staff, when available, may be preferred over a professional hire or community member’s assignment.

The season selection committee should keep in mind, for both Robinson and Hope productions, available roles should be no fewer than eight, and we have an agreed (ideal) aim for the season’s balance of roles to come close to 50 roles, half available to women, half to men, from our University of Oregon student pool.